Second Skin
by OpheliacAngel
Summary: Sometimes he'd blink and still think he was there, surroundings a muted gray, inhuman growling somewhere close. And maybe it would've been better, for them to just have stayed like that. Written for spnspringfling for biffelderberry for their prompt 'soulmates.'
**Title:** Second Skin

 **Author:** OpheliacAngel

 **Pairings:** Benny/Dean

 **Genres:** Romance/Angst

 **Rating:** Teen

 **Warnings:** Alcohol Abuse, Blood Drinking

 **Summary:** Sometimes he'd blink and still think he was there, surroundings a muted gray, inhuman growling somewhere close. And maybe it would've been better, for them to just have stayed like that.

 **A/N:** Written for spnspringfling for biffelderberry on lj for their prompt 'soulmates.'

* * *

Dean didn't know _exactly_ the point when he had figured it out.

In Purgatory there was scarce time for thinking about anything. The only downtime he ever had was when he got laid up for an indefinite amount of time after eating some suspicious looking berries, and maybe he had figured it out then because the whole world literally narrowed down to _Benny._

The fire in his veins had almost eaten him up, the spasms of his belly and the shooting pain that shot through his very bones like incessant fireworks every time he tried to move gave dying as a surety rather than a mere likelihood, yet even as the light retracted from the numbing gray that was Purgatory, even as Dean could no longer string together coherent words or thoughts, _even as_ he knew he would never see Sammy again, Benny was never more than a heartbeat away.

The vampire's cold skin was a balm to Dean's raging fever, body a cool blanket as it wrapped around him and carried him from place to place, soothing the panic of not knowing what was happening. Dean would know when Benny was there one way or another, calloused fingers gripping the back of Dean's neck or just the feel of him _there_ even without touch.

Benny's tongue would lap up the dried blood on Dean's skin after he fed and the hunter would feel Benny's saliva singing in his veins. He would jolt at Benny's thick accent parking up permanent residence in his head, feel everything that Benny was curl against his heart and keep it beating.

' _Time to pack up, chief,'_ Benny would say when something was catching up to them, thumb brushing the tear tracks off Dean's face. After that he was as rough as he could be with Dean when he picked him up, though careful, and Dean knew Benny was only doing this because it was what Dean needed. There was only so much a man could take when he felt like cracked glass, and Dean didn't need to be treated anymore fragile than he already was.

Hell, he had never had to say anything to Benny. The guy just knew him like his soul was twined with Dean's own, like they had known each other their whole lives and years before that. Once the initial shock of realizing that a vampire had saved his ass had worn off, there was no reasonable explanation as to why Dean immediately felt so at ease around him, the fear that Benny could drain him dry in seconds vanishing just as soon as it came 'round.

Dean let Benny drink when he knew he needed a mouthful of fresh, human blood to keep him going, though he had never expected Benny sucking the marrow from his veins to put him so high. With Benny's teeth buried deep in his neck it was more than mere intimacy, it was like they lit up the dull gray sky _together_ , like they were made to be.

Rarely in Dean's life had something served so immediate a purpose, had a sacrifice felt so oddly personal and not at the same time.

The aftermath was worse: Dean was emotionally drained, which meant his guards were down, and Benny's dark eyes, pupils blown wide, wouldn't look at him. He turned away from Dean in shame and resentment, the latter because Dean gave in so easily when they both knew it wasn't in his nature. But the aftermath was something they both could live with. Dean kept Benny whole and Benny stitched him back together, that endless cycle that had become brotherhood. The drinking didn't create what was there, whatever they _had_ , but it definitely didn't retract from it either.

Maybe Dean figured it out at some point after that: how well they fit. Found it out when Dean had grown into himself again and they were back in the hunt. When he realized that having Benny at his side was like having a second skin, something to cover him should he fall too hard and too fast, someone to slip into for security when the nightmares pulled at his sanity like yanking taut flesh from thinning bone.

Through every interrogation and kill he never lost sight of what Benny was to him. With the blood on his hands and through the haze of desperation to find Cas, he could push back how Benny made him feel like he was worth something, like he knew Dean better than Dean knew himself. He could ignore it, chalk it up to needing some form of outlet.

And where he went wrong? Hoping, no… _expecting_ Benny to feel the same way. As soon as he expected it after a nagging bout of insomnia, he immediately tore it up, pushed the shredded pieces all the way back and never thought about it again.

Yet things were rarely ever that easy.

When they got back topside those shreds had formed a sizable mass again, gnawing at him, little teeth nipping away at any shreds of self-preservation left. Dean could lie to Sam all he wanted about still being the same guy, despite the fact that sleeping on a bed and digesting human food was next to impossible, but with the way Benny welcomed him every time Dean caved, by the way Dean caught Benny staring at him when he thought Dean wouldn't notice, he couldn't keep shoving this shit down hoping it wouldn't come back up again.

Still, Dean _wanted_ to put it all behind him, _it_ and _not_ Benny, because as often as Sam glared at him Dean would _never_ part ways with Benny, the fact that he was a vampire who had fed on Dean more than his fair share of times - though always with consent - be damned. There was no way that Dean could catch a break enough for Benny to feel the same way, and as much as Dean hated the not knowing it was the disappointment that he would never be able to survive.

It didn't help that every time he swung by Benny always had food waiting for Dean, rich, hearty food fit to clog his arteries and keep him warm and sated and hard-pressed to leave for a few days. It didn't help that he and Benny shared a bed like it was the most normal thing in the world, like the ground they had shared in Purgatory. He could sleep in a bed as long as Benny was there, and that was _wrong_ somehow.

 _Right too._

It didn't help that when he was with Sam he was always on edge, waiting for a fight, waiting for Sam to slam the door and walk out on him. It felt ingrained in Dean now, that there was no longer a space for him in his brother's life, like he was a puzzle piece that didn't fit Sam's puzzle, edges too jagged and colors all wrong.

He had been pure there. Tainted here. Couldn't meld back into the world. Tried but _couldn't._

With Benny he could be everything he _was_ and not just what he wanted to be. He felt safe, loved, _wanted._ Dean didn't deserve any of it, but giving it up seemed to go against every impulse in him. As many times as he tried to convince himself that he couldn't go to Benny, that he had to work things out with Sam, his baby always led him to _exactly_ where he _wasn't_ supposed to go.

Because no matter how much Dean fought against it, the _more_ he battled with it, he always ended up _right here._

And it twisted the hunter up inside: he was putting the vampire out, he never even called, never managed to bring by blood bags either. He let Benny _feed_ , let him slow down the irregular beat of Dean's heart, let Benny drag him down into sedateness, the sleep heavy enough that nothing could reach him there, not vampires or leviathans or Sam's accusations. But he couldn't keep taking advantage of Benny unless he was planning on staying, and he couldn't _stay_ either, couldn't put that on Benny, couldn't give him the chance to say that _'it was all good back there, chief. But right here I gotta get my head straight on again.'_

Benny dragged him out of the muggy night, huge hands stripping Dean out of his jacket before he knew what was going on, the hunter giving his brain a minute to catch up with the times like he always had to. Sometimes he'd blink and still think he was _there_ , surroundings a muted gray, inhuman growling somewhere close. And maybe it would've been better, for them to just have stayed like that.

He promised to get Benny out of there if Benny kept him alive and helped him find Cas, but nowhere in that deal was there anything about Benny taking care of his sorry ass topside, where the world was _supposed_ to make sense.

There was a bowl of something dark and warm pressed into his chest once Benny had given him the minute Dean hadn't even needed to ask for, and the hunter wrapped his hands around the bowl and dug in, ate so fast like he hadn't eaten in months. He never had a taste for food anymore unless it was Benny's cooking, the "soul food" seeming to fill him up and keep him going like nothing else could.

And he remembered Benny's cool fingers on the back of his neck as he upchucked the berries three-hundred times over, remembered that thick accent in his ear telling him to _'slow down, sugah.'_ It haunted Dean as to how much he needed Benny, holding him close. He would go back in a heartbeat if he could get that again without asking for it here.

"Sorry, man." Dean followed Benny into the kitchen as he scraped his bowl clean with the spoon. He immediately made for the sink, intent to wash the bowl, but Benny shook his head and grunted, grabbing the bowl and cleaning it himself. Dean stood there, hands itching for something to do, watching as Benny pulled his sleeves up and picked up the scrub brush. Sometimes he would beg Benny for something to do just because he couldn't stand not working on something, and Benny always caved, worry hid away _almost_ well-enough. "I can head out in a few," Dean said, voice tipped low. He motioned toward the bottle of bourbon once the vampire looked over at him. "But I think I should wait 'till most of that's out of my system." Benny nodded again, then wordlessly went back to his task. Dean could see just below the surface how Benny didn't want him here, wanted him to _go._

Dean turned to leave the room, the regret and self-loathing bone-deep. He needed an outlet and he needed one _now._ He could drink until he was numb, except he didn't even think he could get to that point anymore, or he could try to get to the bottom of the distance between him and Benny, the one that _Dean_ was causing.

Option number one it was.

He'd lock himself in the guest bathroom so he wouldn't be in Benny's way, drink until he was on the verge of passing out and hopefully end up there. Then he would slip out the door in the morning when Benny was sleeping and… then what?

Didn't matter. Dean grabbed the half-empty bottle of bourbon and made to leave the room. He didn't get very far. A _shatter_ and he froze, turning to find that Benny, still turned away from Dean, had broken the bowl. There were no words for several heartbeats, and then Benny hung his head low in shame and _Dean_ had caused that, caused this whole goddamn _mess._

"Ben…."

Dean cut off when Benny sighed heavily. He murmured something under his breath that Dean didn't understand, and a tremor ran through him. He had pushed Benny to this and it would be his fault what happened next, yet that initial surge of anger seemed long-since faded now. Benny turned and walked over to Dean, his hand resting on top of the human's before pulling the bottle away and planting it back onto the table. " _Mate_ ," he growled, low and fierce in Dean's ear. His hand cupped the back of Dean's neck, cooling the sweat there, thumb rubbing back and forth until Dean was seriously worried about going limp, no doubt in his mind that Benny would catch him.

"Mate," he repeated, as if Dean hadn't got it the first time. "I thought you got that, cher. Yet you kept runnin' and I had no place tryin' to go after ya. Had to let it happen on its own time."

 _Purgatory,_ Dean remembered. He couldn't stop remembering. Benny had kept him alive, but not just in one way. _They_ linked. Dean had a pretty substantial space in Benny's heart, and Benny in Dean's, but there was no way in hell that he was admitting that Benny was his soulmate. For one thing, soulmates didn't exist, he knew that much after finding out how his parents had been manipulated, yet whatever the hell Dean _wanted_ to call it, there was no mistaking the fine tremor in his hands when Benny wasn't at his back, when the vampire's broad shoulders and brick wall chest weren't engulfing the hunter. When Benny's teeth weren't grazing his neck, teasing, voice a low rumble that synchronized with Dean's racing heart.

And Dean said the first thing that came to mind, not even bothering to consider this, to give Benny the benefit of the doubt. "Soulmates don't exist, Benny. Just some fairytale cooked up to appeal to the disillusioned few."

Benny's thumb ran along the underside of his chin, and the smile in his eyes meant that he _knew_ what it did to Dean. And how long had he known… known how Dean felt? How long had he let Dean tear himself up inside?

"I ain't gonna tell ya to stop fighting, sugah. I ain't never gonna tell ya to do that. But you gotta know how I feel and you gotta know that _this_ ," he motioned to the walls around them, "is _right._ "

The hard fact was that Dean knew that. This was Dean's home as much as it was Benny's. So he let Benny lead him into the bedroom and undress Dean slowly like he was worshiping him, let Benny feed him another bowl in bed and whisper what Dean suspected to be French endearments in his ear, let Benny's beard scratch against his cheek as he kissed Dean soft and slow and surer than Dean had ever seen him.

He let Benny put him back together again because he was home, and just in time too.

 **FIN**


End file.
